I just started nioting the “Land Acknowledgment” – the laborious-yet-offhand “acknowledgment” that an event was being held on land once occupied by Natives – in the last couple of years, mostly among the sorts of Twin Cities “social justice” non-profits that exude self-righteousness like some people exude bad breath.
It’s struck me as mawkish and purposeless, the sort of consequence-free moral preening that, well, defines the modern “social justice” mob, while putting none of their own skin in the game. It is to history what the term “Latinx” is to sociology and linguistics; a way to make a complex subject palatable to socially fussy white progressive social justice lemmings.
I finally have an arsenal of responses, from this article, which has almost too many great points to try to pullquote.
I said “almost”:
It is difficult to exaggerate the superficiality of these statements. What do members of the acknowledged group hold sacred? What makes them unique and identifies them to one another? Who are they, where did they come from, and where are they going? The evasion of these fundamental questions is typical. The speaker demonstrates no knowledge of the people whose names he reads carefully off the sheet of paper. Nor does he make any but the most general connection between the event and those people, other than an ancient one, not too different from the speaker’s relationship with the local geology or flora.
Things get more substantial, but no less acerbic. I recommend it.
I’d like to acknowledge that the land I occupy was once owned by the M’iki’Mauss and B’uhlScheeta people and purposed as a community excretory depository . That is all.
Rhetorically these are conqueror statements, the exact inverse of the statements praising the pioneers, wettlers, and founders of this great nation that used to be the preamble to public meetings.
So who has conquered? Not the Indians. They are as miserable as ever. Political activist Native American organizations are a creation of the academy.
Who has been conquered? Obviously not the people making the conqueror statement.
“Land Acknowledgment” = revanchist NGO gibberish that will be summarily disposed of (liquidated) when it no longer advances a narrative for the Left.
^^ 2 min 17 sec to post above
“This office building sits on land stolen from the Indians.”
“Okay, when do we move?”
“What?”
“Well, you just said we’re in possession of stolen property. Obviously, we can’t keep it – that would not only perpetuate the sin of the original crime but would be illegal and immoral besides. We have to give the land back to the Indians but when we do, we won’t have an office building. So that means we must be moving to a new office building. What I’m asking is, when are we moving? Because I’d like to put in a bid for a window office, please.”
“Oh, and do you know where the new office building will be? Because based on your map, it looks as if pretty much all the land in North America was stolen from one bunch of Indians or another. So are we moving to like, Ireland or somewhere? Because that’s going to be a hell of a commute for some of us.”
If we follow “the science”, there really are no native Americans. Those tribes actually migrated to the North American continent from Asia.
I wonder if the dusky, 68 IQ mob that will inhabit the North American continent in the near future will acknowledge the burned out shells they hold their councils of war in were once inhabited by a pale race of peoples who travelled across oceans from the West to build a once magnificent civilization from the raw materials they discovered in these places?
I was watching a TV program recently where one of the characters, a “Native” American, complained that European settlers introduced genocide to the Americas. Ironically, the character griped about revisionist history.
Just about any tribe that still exists today has had to spill blood to survive. Only in the fevered mind of a leftist would we have to apologize for our tribe surviving the conflict.
Eventually, we’ll be back to the stone age era, after everything is corrected.
If you have to attend a meeting where a “land acknowledgment” statement is made, question the process. Like the meetings where tax payers question the actions of the tax-eaters, the tax-eaters do not want you to see how the sausage gets made.
the NGOs that push this nonsense are just looking far a taste of Dane-Geld…
Rudyard Kipling
Dane-Geld
A.D. 980-1016
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: —
“We invaded you last night–we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: —
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: —
“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!”
It would be fun to see the sequence of peoples that have occupied Minnesota. I seem to remember that during the 18th and 19th century, the Ojibwe were pushing out the Dakota, who then were (largely) pushed out by caucasians. I would guess that as Native Americans colonized the Americas, numerous peoples which ended up on the East Coast, Indiana, Ohio, and the like came through Minnesota as well. So perhaps the whites replaced the Ojibwe, who replaced the Dakota, who replaced the Ojibwe, who replaced Algonians, who replaced the Patawatomi, who replaced the Huron, who replaced the Miami and Ohio and the (Fighting) Illini, who replaced the Wampanoag…..
OK, hypothetical sequence based on my very limited knowledge of the travel patterns of these tribes, but I think it makes the point….and it could be even more entertaining in parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia where wars re-drew maps every decade or so. Who the heck does this land belong to now?
and it could be even more entertaining in parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia where wars re-drew maps every decade or so. Who the heck does this land belong to now?
Drive through Germany and Austria and you’ll see a castle every 10 kilometers or so, built by folks trying to say, “This is my land; keep your cotton-picking (spaetzle-picking) hands off!” It only works for awhile.
Nobody in America owns their land. I paid my mortgage off a long time ago, and if I quit paying my property taxes, guess what, the government would confiscate my land that I paid for.
Yup! Another invention of the party of the working man. Property taxes, along with federal and state income, sales and fuel taxes, are all inventions of the DemoCommies.
Don’t forget —
The Estate Tax is a tax on your right to transfer property at your death. It consists of an accounting of everything you own or have certain interests in at the date of death.
Commonly called the death tax.
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